from the use of stimulants. They were cured by substituting water for the pernicious beverage.

In this city, spirits, particularly gin, are given to infants and children to a frightful extent. I once saw an old Irish woman give diluted spirits to an infant just born. A short time since one of these dramdrinking children, about eight years of age, was brought into one of our hospitals. The attendants, from its emaciated appearance, considered the child was dying from mere starvation; which was true enough in a certain sense. Food was accordingly offered and pressed upon it, but the boy would not even put it to his lips. The next day it was discovered that the mother brought the child very nearly a pint of gin, every drop of which before night he had consumed; a quantity which must have destroyed life, if dram-drinking had not been the habit of the boy.

It is easy to discover when children have been fed upon spirits: they are always emaciated; have a lean, yellow, haggard look; the eyes sunk, the lips pale, and the teeth discoloured, the cadaverous aspect of the countenance being most fearful. They are continually suffering from bowel complaints and convulsive disorders; which, under these circumstances, terminate invariably in an early death.

There is a circumstance connected with the dieting of children with which parents ought to be acquainted; certain articles of food, most wholesome in themselves and taken with advantage by others, disagreeing with an individual child. We cannot conceive why, but presume it depends upon a hidden peculiarity of constitution, which we call idiosyncrasy, and which generally remains through life. Eggs, milk, sugar, cheese, mutton, and other kinds of food, will thus have an almost

poisonous effect; even when taken in the smallest quantity, and however disguised by the most ingenious cookery. Dr. Prout mentions the case of an individual who could not eat mutton in any form. The peculiarity was supposed to be owing to caprice, and the mutton was repeatedly disguised, and given unknown to the individual; but uniformly with the same result of producing vomiting and diarrhoea. And from the severity of the effects, which were in fact those of a virulent poison, there can be little doubt that, if the use of mutton had been persisted in, it would have soon destroyed the life of the individual. But whilst we admit this rare peculiarity, we must be careful not to indulge the dainty dislikes of a child to substances which when eaten produce no ill-effects. For the mind's sake as well as the body, such a disposition cannot be too early and vigorously opposed.

86

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF INFANTS UP TO THE SECOND YEAR, AND OF CHILDREN UP TO THE EIGHTH.

Sect. 1. Of the Children's Apartments and Servants.

A LARGE portion of the early years of children being spent in the nursery, and under the immediate care of dependents, the apartments they inhabit, and the persons who have the charge of them, ought to be of no small moment to parents, for the health and future welfare of their children will greatly depend on these two points.

Apartments. The proper ventilation of the apartments of children has not hitherto received that share of attention which its serious influence upon health deserves. Provision is rarely made for a regular supply of fresh, or removal of vitiated air, beyond what is afforded by windows, doors, and open chimneys. The fact is, that the public generally are not alive to the vast evils consequent upon breathing impure air. If, however, anyone wants to be convinced, and to see them in their most unmitigated form, it is only necessary to visit the dwellings of the poor in a crowded city; the atmosphere they will have to breathe, and the appearance of the inmates, will amply suffice to

convince the most sceptical. Dr. Liddle, the Medical Officer of Health for the Whitechapel District ('Daily Telegraph,' April 26, 1876), showed by actual figures that the death-rate increases in frightful proportions in direct ratio with the density of the population; it is stated in one part of a district which was sadly overcrowded, that the death-rate rose from an average of 26 per 1,000 to 70 per 1,000; and that this great increase was chiefly due to consumption and similar diseases. 'The chief victims of malaria were the women and children who, vegetating at home—if such noisome dens could be called "homes -were more exposed to deleterious influences than the men who were away at work.' I quote these figures, not because I think any of my readers will ever be so situated that these pernicious influences will work on them, but just to show what the value of fresh air really is, and with a view to impress on them how important a subject that of ventilation is. Many authorities might be appealed to in confirmation of this conclusion. I will only cite one: Sir James Clark regards the respiration of a deteriorated atmosphere as one of the most powerful causes of the tuberculous cachexia' (viz., the constitutional affection which precedes the appearance of consumption). He says: "If an infant born in perfect health, and of the healthiest parents, be kept in close rooms, in which free ventilation and cleanliness are neglected, a few months will often suffice to induce tuberculous cachexia.' 'There can be no doubt,' he adds, 'that the habitual respiration of the air of ill-ventilated and gloomy alleys in large towns is a powerful means of augmenting the hereditary disposition to scrofula, and even of inducing such a disposition de novo. Children

reared in the workhouses of this country, and in similar establishments abroad, almost all become scrofulous, and this more, I believe, from the confined impure air in which they live, and the want of active exercise, than from defective nourishment.' A striking instance of the ill-effects of deficient ventilation in schools, strongly confirmatory of this view, is mentioned in the second volume of the Poor Law Reports. The school referred to consisted of 600 pupils, amongst whom scrofula broke out extensively, and great mortality occurred, which was ascribed to bad and insufficient food. The case was investigated; the food was proved to be most abundant and good; and defective ventilation and consequent atmospheric impurity were assigned as the cause. Ventilation was applied, the scrofula soon after disappeared, and 1,100 children are now maintained in good health, where the 600, before ventilation, were scrofulous and sickly.

Enough has been said, I think, to prove the extreme importance of thorough ventilation in the apartments of the young, and to induce the reader to adopt the principle where at present it is in any degree neglected. For it may be regarded as a well-ascertained fact that, where systematic ventilation does not exist, it is almost impossible to keep an apartment shut up for any length of time without a condition of atmosphere being produced that must be injurious. How often, where rooms are ill-ventilated, must a mother, on entering her nursery in the course of the day, but more particularly the bedroom of her children in the early morning, be sensible of the impurity of the atmosphere while the occupants are altogether unconscious of it. Comparatively fresh at the commencement of the day or night, the air deteriorates so slowly and equally